Knowing what to use for each can be frustrating, however, so some basic guidelines follow, plus Examples and a note about Usage Rights.

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note

Anchor

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titles

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Images should always be posted with a specific purpose in mind, rather than simply added for 'variety' or 'color'.

titles

Titles

In our CMS, the title is sometimes visible (Gallery Images) and other times not (Slideshow Images). In either case, however, titles should be kept as brief as possible.

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Thermal Image of Retina

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ThermalRetina.jpg

Anchor

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Less Effective

captions

captions

Captions

Captions should not be literal descriptions of the image. Instead, they should connect the image to the page or site it resides on, by providing context to the site's goals, events or other desired information.

More Effective

Less Effective

Biology majors at USM have access to the latest research technology, like the FLIR SC7900 VL thermal imaging camera used to capture this image of the human eye.

Thermal camera image of human eye.

A key exception to this is in instances where specific descriptions may enhance the message.

Note

Captions are not always available (Gallery Images), but areas for description are present and can serve much the same purpose.

Anchor

alternate

alternate

Alternate Text

The Alternate Text (or 'alt text') attribute is used by screen readers, search engines and when the image cannot be loaded. Alt text is intended to represent the image for non-visual situations, so it should be a literal (but brief) description of the image.

Note

The alt text attribute is sometimes only visible AFTER a file has been uploaded.